Jazz

Tom Misch and Yussef Dayes’ What Kinda Music – an astonishing collaboration between two artists of very different disciplines, and one of the most unique and seamlessly original projects of its ilk to date. 

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a compilation album by American poet Gil Scott-Heron. It was released in 1974 by Flying Dutchman Records and titled after Scott-Heron's 1971 song of the same name

Idris Muhammad recorded this classic Jazz-Funk album Turn This Mutha Out in 1977 for the Kudu label. Some great session musicians accompanied him and the album has that David Matthews signature Disco-Jazz-Funk sound.

After cutting these sides Baker and Evans would go their separate ways and these recordings remain the only testimony of their subtle and elegant musical interactions.

Recorded on 15th February 1954 and 23rd / 30th July 1956 in Hollywood, California. Baker’s 14-track debut vocal album, originally released on Pacific Jazz in 1956.

The British jazz / hip hop fusion collective Us3 founded in 1992 in London and its notable members included producers Mel Simpson and Geoff Wilkinson. 

Easily one of the most important records ever made, this was Coltrane's pinnacle studio outing that spoke of his search for spiritual and musical freedom, as expressed through polyrhythms, modalities, and purely vertical forms.

Music That Inspired Buena Vista Social Club

Dorothy Ashby was an American jazz harpist, one of the very few who used her instrument to play credible jazz and bebop.

Donald Byrd’s 1975 album Places and Spaces featuring the hits “Wind Parade” and “Dominoes” was the culmination of the great trumpeter’s fusion period.

Sunday at the Village Vanguard is a live album by jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans and his Trio consisting of Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian. Released in 1961, the album is routinely ranked as one of the best live jazz recordings of all time.

Mercurial bassist and bandleader Charles Mingus was signed to Columbia records for the briefest of time during 1959.

Many great singers passed through the hands of late great soul/R&B producer Jerry Wexler, from Aretha Franklin to Dusty Springfield, but Etta James was a singer he willingly waited 20 long years to work with.

Recorded live at the Village Vanguard on June 25, 1961, the same night as Sunday At The Village Vanguard, this set rounded out what became known as an early "full" portrait of Bill Evans.

Second only to Kind of Blue by Miles and Jazz Samba by Stan Getz, as the most commercially successful jazz record of all time (it even contained a single for the pop charts, Paul Desmond's magnificent Take Five'), Brubeck brilliantly popularised jazz and offered it as a palatable alternative to Bobby Vee

Album of the Year 2015 Number 7.A brazen release from young Los Angeles jazz giant, composer and bandleader Kamasi Washington.

Universally regarded as one of the greatest collaborations between the two most influential musicians in modern jazz (Miles Davis notwithstanding), the Jazzland sessions from Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane should be recognized on other levels. While the mastery of the principals is beyond reproach, credit should also be given to peerless bassist Wilbur Ware, as mighty an anchor as anyone could want. These 1957 dates also sport a variety in drummerless trio, quartet, septet, or solo piano settings, all emphasizing the compelling and quirky compositions of Monk.

On his third date for Blue Note within a year, Wayne Shorter changed the bands that played on both Night Dreamer and Juju and came up with not only another winner, but also managed to give critics and jazz fans a different look at him as a saxophonist.

This album is one of the reasons that Idris Muhammad is regarded as the drumming king of groove. 

Great to have a vinyl reissue of one of Miles best. Scorned by critics at the time of its release, Miles Davis' 1972 album On the Corner is now seen as a forerunner of post punk, hip hop, drum and bass and electronic music, thanks to its revolutionary recording techniques.

Strut present the first official reissue of a landmark album in the field of African music, Mulatu Astatke’s Mulatu Of Ethiopia from 1972.

Celebrating 40 years since its first release, Johnny Hammond's Gears is given the deluxe treatment on CD and vinyl with the addition of six previously unreleased tracks and a brand new transfer from the original masters.

With Ballads Coltrane looks into the warmer side of things, a path he would take with both Johnny Hartman and with Duke Ellington.

Fat Albert Rotunda is the venture into jazz-funk by keyboardist Herbie Hancock.

Miles Davis (1926-1991) and Bill Evans (1929-1960) were two of the major luminaries in jazz history.

In a Silent Way' is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis, released on July 30, 1969.

Following the hugely popular first Acid Jazz (Not Jazz) release in 2022, label-heads Eddie Piller and Dean Rudland return with a second vinyl outing - We’ve Got A Funky Beat.

Influential dj, producer, radio-presentator and founder of the Acid Jazz, Talkin' Loud labels MBE Gilles Peterson has handpicked 11 of his jazz favourites from the immense catalog of the Dutch jazz Timeless label.

While the 1953 Bud Shank/Laurindo Almeida recordings were the precursors of the bossa nova-jazz fusion, the 1962 Stan Getz LP, Jazz Samba, would start the bossa nova craze.

This 1952 collection is one of bebop’s key artefacts and also represents two jazz milestones: the only and only time that pianist Thelonious Monk recorded with the dynamic duo, and the last time Gillespie and Parker appeared together in the studio.

Porgy And Bess’, recorded in late 1957, was the third album by Ella and Louis to be produced by Norman Granz.

Gilles Peterson, renowned DJ, producer, radio host, and founder of Acid Jazz and Talkin’ Loud, returns with a new handpicked selection from the iconic Dutch Timeless Jazz label. Timeless Jazz Classics Vol. 3 is the double album featuring standout performances and rare versions by legendary arti...

"This important album, Monk's first after a long absence from the recording studio, is a stunning reaffirmation of his power as a performer and composer. It is a brilliant and absorbing program of five Monk originals and three standards (and they might just as well be originals, so startling is their transformation at his hands). This is a beautiful album in every respect." - Pete Welding, DownBeat Magazine

The legendary jazz harpist's most enduring set, 'The Rubáiyát of Dorothy Ashby' reconfigures the template for jazz vocal albums, fusing hard bop with the sublime spiritualism Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders channeled in the '60s and '70s.

Reissue of herbie hancock's essential 1962 debut album on blue note. the lp features quality sound taken from the original master tapes, 180g vinyl, heavy cardboard sleeve and original artwork.

Certainly, this edition of Return to Forever wasn't inclined toward high-voltage jazz-rock (as the next one was), but this group's two albums still stand as some of the most imaginative and distinctive early fusion recordings.

Oh yes! First ever official reissue of the positively sublime and very rare Butterfly LP, recorded in Tokyo in 1979 by Japanese songstress Kimiko Kasai and jazz legend Herbie Hancock.

Long held as the jazz album that even non-jazz fans will own, Kind Of Blue not only changed the way people regarded Miles, it changed the very face of music itself.

This excellent set features one of the best recordings by the second version of the Jazz Messengers, and it is the only time that Blakey featured both altoist Jackie McLean and tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin together; Griffin soon became McLean's successor with the band.

This release presents the complete original Mongo Santamaria LP Watermelon Man!

Contradictory accounts of Miles Davis’ creation of the soundtrack to Louis Malle’s film noir Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud have all become part of its legend.

Chet Baker Sings is unique in that the nimble artist sets aside his trumpet in several of the tracks, using only his vocals—and even scatting some of the improvised solos in a style that sounds very much like his lyrical trumpet playing.

They say you can't judge a book by its cover, and going by 'Jazz Rock', nor a record by its title.

Brilliant Corners is Thelonius Monk's third disc for Riverside, and it's the first on the label to weigh in with such heavy original material.

Recorded in 1975 at the Köln Opera House and released the same year, nothing on this program was considered before he sat down to play. All of the gestures, intricate droning harmonies, skittering and shimmering melodic lines, and whoops and sighs from the man are spontaneous. Although it was one continuous concert, the piece is divided into four sections, largely because it had to be divided for double LP. But from the moment Jarrett blushes his opening chords and begins meditating on harmonic invention, melodic figure construction, glissando combinations, and occasional ostinato phrasing, music changed. For some listeners it changed forever in that moment. For others it was a momentary flush of excitement, but it was change, something so sorely needed and begged for by the record-buying public. Jarrett's intimate meditation on the inner workings of not only his pianism, but also the instrument itself and the nature of sound and how it stacks up against silence, involved listeners in its search for beauty, truth, and meaning. The concert swings with liberation from cynicism or the need to prove anything to anyone ever again. With this album, Jarrett put himself in his own league, and you can feel the inspiration coming off him in waves. This may have been the album every stoner wanted in his collection "because the chicks dug it." Yet it speaks volumes about a musician and a music that opened up the world of jazz to so many who had been excluded, and offered the possibility -- if only briefly -- of a cultural, aesthetic optimism, no matter how brief that interval actually was. This is a true and lasting masterpiece of melodic, spontaneous composition and improvisation that set the standard.

Recorded in Madrid in July 2017, Shamal Wind combines Chip Wickham's globetrotting, spiritual jazz expeditions with hard-won schoolings in the funk.

The piano hero’s classic 1964 album. His third Blue Note LP. Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on 30th August 1963.

Like his one-time boss, Miles Davis, Saxophonist Wayne Shorter can divide his long and established career into phases.

Duke Ellington surprised the jazz world in 1962 with his historic trio session featuring Charles Mingus and Max Roach.

Two months after recording The Sidewinder, trumpet legend Lee Morgan was back in Van Gelder Studio in February 1964 creating his masterful sextet album Search for the New Land with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Grant Green, Reggie Workman, and Billy Higgins.

Charlie Byrd (1925 -1999) was one of the first modern guitar players to reintroduce the unamplified Spanish guitar into jazz.

A Single Woman is an album from 1993 by singer, pianist, and songwriter Nina Simone. It was her last album. In 1993, A Single Woman was placed 3th in the Top Jazz Albums.

Bobbi Humphrey scored her biggest hit with her third album Blacks and Blues, an utterly delightful jazz-funk classic that helped make her a sensation at Montreux.

Nucleus's Elastic Rock is undisputedly a milestone in Jazz-Rock. A beautiful and vital debut album, it was first released on Vertigo in 1970.

Classic 1972 album. If there’s one word to summarize Donald Byrd’s career, it’s undoubtedly “eclectic.” 

Miles Davis Live From Free Trade Hall in Manchester.

Renowned Italian spiritual jazz master, DJ, producer, guitarist, and bandleader Nicola Conte proudly presents his new album Umoja via London based label Far Out Recordings.

It is fully a jazz album, and a completely funky soul-jazz disc as well. Smith plays both piano and electric keyboards and keeps his compositions on the jazzy side: breezy, open, and full of groove.

As Late Night Tales moves into a new decade, the long awaited chapter from The Cinematic Orchestra greets us with style. Following editions from behemoths of rock Arctic Monkeys and Snow Patrol, The Cinematic Orchestra’s selection sees a return to a more typical Late Night compiler. Their association with the series reaches back to the inclusion of ‘Channel 1 Suite’ from their debut album ‘Motion’ on Zero7’s memorable 2002 compilation. With track selection and order seeing many revisions since the inception of the project, we arrive with one of the most defined Late Night Tales yet to come in the series 10 year history.

In June 1964, Grant Green recorded his blazing post-bop session for Solid, an album that would go unreleased until 1979 as Blue Note had success with the guitarist’s soul jazz outings of the time.

Recorded on 1st March 1962 at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Recorded in 1962 but not originally released until 1985. A classic post-bop album from a Blue Note legend.

Recorded in 1967 but not released until 1978, Lee Morgan’s The Procrastinator stands in hindsight as one of the monumental achievements of the trumpeter’s prolific late-60s output.

Lonnie Liston Smith was one of the most important musicians to emerge in jazz in the 1970s. His 1975 album ‘Expansions’ is one of the foundation stones of modern dance music and his recordings have been sampled by many of the biggest artists in the world.

Carried by its almost impossibly infectious eponymous opening track, The Sidewinder helped foreshadow the sounds of boogaloo and soul-jazz with its healthy R&B influence and Latin tinge.

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is stereo, all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

"All the Vanguard music is informed by an extra sense of discovery, as if the musicians were suddenly aware of what they were on to and were celebrating the achievement."

Collection of jazz favourites from the Dutch jazz label Timeless Records (which celebrates its 50th Anniversary in 2025) compiled by world reknown jazz collector, labelboss, radio-jock and DJ Gilles Peterson.

This release presents the complete widely celebrated Massey Hall concert, performed in Canada by an all-star quintet of bebop founders which would never be reunited again.

As his only release for Blue Note, this 1957 set is one of the finest bop albums recorded. 

Colin Curtis is back! with another finely curated selection of the best Jazz Dance Fusion records he could find.

This album brings together some of the finest music ever released on Black Jazz Records who, in their short four-year history, between 1971 and 1975, released over 20 superlative albums which all successfully blended spiritual jazz, funk and soul jazz of the highest calibre.

Root Down was Hammond B-3 jazz legend Jimmy Smith's 1972 live album for Verve.

A few years after recording Straight, No Chaser, Thelonious Monk disappeared from the public eye. But as the years passed, more people became aware of the seminal role he played in the development in jazz as both pianist and composer, creating a standard of excellence that many musicians after him aspire to.

The crown jewel of the epic Evans / Davis triptych that began with 'Miles Ahead' and 'Porgy and Bess', 'Sketches of Spain' is as emotionally compelling as any performance in the trumpeter's remarkable body of works.

In addition to being members of Miles Davis' band, John Coltrane, Red Garland and Paul Chambers recorded several projects together without the trumpeter, Soultranebeing one of them

Ella and Louis is a studio album by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, accompanied by the Oscar Peterson Quartet, released in October 1956. Having previously collaborated in the late 1940s for the Decca label, this was the first of three albums that Fitzgerald and Armstrong were to record together for Verve Records, later followed by 1957's Ella and Louis Again and 1959's Porgy and Bess.

Miles Davis is regarded to be one of the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music.

Compare the best of British jazz circa 1963 with American sounds from labels such as Prestige, Tangerine and World Pacific. This album captures the period when rhythm and blues is emerging as the dominant club sound, forcing Soho jazz clubs to change their music policy in order to survive. On t...

One of the few albums cut by singer Vi Velasco - and a great vocal follow-up to the Zoot Sims bossa albums. Zoot plays tenor on this record too -- mixing his solos with Vi's vocals in a style that's rather like the interplay between Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto -- with a similar blend of America...

Breathe captures the Hammond B-3 organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith during his 75th birthday run at the Jazz Standard in NYC in 2017.